Sunday, May 10, 2009

I read about this project over at Craft Hope to donate dolls to children at the Casa Bernabe Orphanage.

I'm sending these girls off tomorrow to live in Nicaragua. I'm sending their little quilts with them, too. Dolls need quilts.

These girls will be going to Victoria, as a contribution to Handmade Help. Each doll has a little quilt, mostly made from leftover bits and pieces from quilts I've made over the years. Those little pieces went a long way - there are 13 little quilts in that pile. I had some assistance making the dolls from my sewing friends - they've never made dolls before, so it was quite an experience.

The quilting is progressing - I'm quite enjoying it now that I've started. The plan is to enter both quilts in the RNA Quilts Across Queensland show this year. Entries close June 26th, so they have to be photo ready by then. I'll have a couple more weeks after then to fully complete them.

And this is what the inside of my sewing machine looks like after a couple of hours quilting. I clean my machine frequently - a cotton bud is better that the little nylon brush you get with the machine, and I put a drop of machine oil on to help pick up the lint. I remember hearing that the cleaning/oiling recommendations that come with the machine are based on usage of about 30 hours dressmaking per year. Obviously, my machine gets a lot more use than that.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

I was trying to cure my quilter's block when I saw a picture of paisley fabric. I love paisley, it so curly and loopy and gorgeous.

So now I'm madly googling images of paisley (line drawings) and I'm going to do a sampler/practice quilt to see if my idea will work.

I don't like to mark quilting - I think it is harder to follow a line on the fabric than it is to just freehand it. But you do need to "learn" patterns so they are in your head and you don't get stuck while you're quilting. I'm thinking that I'll quilt the paisley in colours on the dark background and then kind of McTavish the rest of the background.

This is a quilt that I started a while ago - the pattern is Circle of Life by Jacqueline de Jonge. I've started the quilting - all the ditch "foundation" quilting has been done, but I've been stuck with what to do next. So it's been folded up and waiting for it's turn.

Next in the quilter's block pile - this (unamed) one. I designed this on EQ5, finished the top and ran out of puff when it came to the quilting. I should just get started and do something, instead of over thinking it and not doing anything. (The purple background is quite dark, the flash has made it look really bright).

This is a friends quilt that I am finishing the quilting on. Fifi offered her assistance by sitting on my lap while I was trying to quilt.

See that bulge under the U for Umbrella?

Coco was testing out the quilt for cosiness - she sat there for hours, so I think she approved.

I don't know what cats in non-quilting households do for entertainment - mine get a lot of fun out of playing under them - I have to make quilt tents for them to sit in, and they always test them out when they are lying on the ironing board.